Nocturnal Emissions (from October 2002)

The music: Amy Winehouse, Back to Black. All the songs, because they are all good. And whatever her demons, so was she.

Sifting tonight through old writing, essay and story ideas to see if there is anything valuable that can be worked up. From October 2002, these amused me:

from "Nocturnal Emissions" 2002
"Thinking tonight about all those awful things that get said after midnight, when the truth comes out and you can't get it back in. Then what happens? Do you ignore it, or work with it and shape it? You didn't really want to keep it in in the first place, it rises and surprises you when it comes out, and you feel really good afterward. Have you ever said something so fast and hard and unexpectedly that you couldn't believe it was you who said it? Something that built up over so long a time that you thought you might just explode if you didn't say it? And then you did, and it felt so great that suddenly you smelled colors. You felt so great you could just evaporate into a cloud of joy and relief. For about three minutes. And then you realize that the BOOM BOOM BOOM sound you hear are the jaws of your friends and loved ones hitting the floor all around you. Then there it is: the great sticky wad of TRUTH in the middle of the floor, lonely and pointless. You all look at it, and don't really know what to say. You know it will have to be cleaned up eventually, and it will have to be you that does it, because you are the one that put it there. But right now, you are damn glad you said it, and you feel satisfied and justified and spent. All the dark stuff comes out after midnight in October."

from "St. Christina the Astonishing" 2002
"There was never a moment when I wanted what the angels were handing me, and never a moment when I wanted to give it up. I could never understand or accept that I had to choose, choose one path, and let the others go. It's the dusty path I've always been on, since the beginning, driving my own car, watching as the other women become permanent passengers in their own lives. They always screamed in my ear that their choice was right, that I would somehow be sorry for trying to be too much, but I would notice tightness that played around the corners of their mouths and I would wonder. I felt my own heat follow me around like a demanding shadow and I wasn't content, but I was filled with bits of passing comets and that felt right. In high school the ones who were asked out were the ones that could make their face appear completely serene, blank. Blank and bland and see through souls like cut crystal vases and I would wonder, where did they go? Where did they put themselves?"